


always shadows on the wall

by cleverusernameloading



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (the one where they find that old clone wars droid and have to fight it), Character Study, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, post s3e5 the last battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23994862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleverusernameloading/pseuds/cleverusernameloading
Summary: After the encounter with the old tactical droid, Kanan does some thinking about the Clone Wars.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	always shadows on the wall

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a real hard time with writing for the past few years despite trying my absolute hardest to get some of my favorite WIPs out. so, like, damn. you'd think I'd manage to put some of the energy that went into this into my two-years-in-progress-but-still-only-1.6k sad obi wan on tatooine fic instead but I guess the combo of tcw s7e11 and rebels s3e5 two days apart just. hit me. so here we are.

Most days Kanan is happy not to think about the Clone Wars. Most days Kanan _doesn't_ think about the Clone Wars, because Kanan Jarrus never fought in that war and most days he is just Kanan Jarrus and not Caleb Dume.

Today, however, he struggles to think of anything else. Fighting that blasted tactical droid had...hit just a little too hard, leaving him to dwell on thoughts he's gotten very good at locking up and avoiding over the years.

The war was doomed from the start. He had known that, technically, but hearing Ezra lay it out as he had felt almost like a blow to the gut. Three years of fighting and billions dead, and all for...what? Just to bring about the rise of the Empire? Everything had been manipulated, thoroughly and expertly, from the start. There had never, ever been a chance of any other outcome.

Knowing that makes it even harder to think of those days -- the ones just before Order 66, where, yes, the fighting had been hard but the news from Coruscant almost made it seem like the end could finally be in sight and maybe all the Jedi could go back to the Temple the way it should be -- it's hard to think of without choking on his sorrow for what he knows becomes of all that hope. And, especially, what he knows becomes of that fourteen-year-old kid who sees the galaxy in a black-and-white of good and bad, thinks that the Republic and the Jedi will stand forever, believes that those he trusts can never betray him.

Order 66 cracked that idealism for him. The following years ground it into dust, and Caleb Dume along with it.

Kanan knows the war wasn't good to anyone (well, except Palpatine), but, despite his own personal issues with the clones, the more time he spends with Rex the more he feels like they really were the ones who truly lost the war. Millions of them had been bred solely to fight, thrown into the stress of battle at only nine years old, then discarded without a second thought as soon as their only purpose for existing was fulfilled. Then, they were just....left. Left to try to find a way to survive besides the only thing they had ever known, aging at twice the rate of anyone around them. Sometimes he wonders what the plan for the clones was after the war, if there was one. It seems cruel to commission the creation of millions of sentient beings just to abandon them, but Kanan can't honestly say the Republic was never cruel.

Rex had called him Cody in that hangar when he had spent several seconds clearly caught in the unyielding grip of the past. Kanan can only assume the name once belonged to another clone. Unfortunately, he himself is all too familiar with those flashbacks. There are days where all it takes is Rex's voice, and for a few moments he is overwhelmed by things that once were. Sometimes, he's lucky, and he just remembers the clones teasing him as they camped for the night, the constant friendly chatter on long marches or hyperspace trips. Usually, though, he's not, and all he can think of is how suddenly their blasters turned on him and Master Billaba, the terror sinking into his bones as he heard them calling out to each other as they chased him through the Kalleran forest, the callousness of Styles's voice as he condemned the Jedi as traitors. He wonders if the same thing ever happens to Rex at the sight of a lightsaber or in the heat of a firefight. He doesn't think he knows how to ask.

And Ezra -- Ezra, raised on stories of the Clone Wars, had sounded almost excited to be a part of the fight. Kanan remembers when he felt that way, when fighting in a war was something exhilarating instead of the brutal, dangerous drudgery he now knows it to be. That's part of why he never wanted to get this little family of his involved with the rebels at all: Ezra doesn't deserve to grow up the way Caleb had to. Sabine doesn't either. Fourteen -- or, for that matter, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen -- is far too young to be caught up in war, and just because he had to be doesn't mean they should be. Kanan understands that the Order was making difficult decisions based on necessity during the war, but that doesn't mean he can condone the idea of using children as soldiers. He wishes there was a way to keep the kids out of this, wonders if someday they'll be having thoughts like these themselves. 

There isn't anything he can do, though, not at this point. All he can do is his best to protect them.

He just has to hope that's enough.

(When he sleeps that night, he dreams of _chaos blaster bolts screams pain go run I'll be right behind you_. He wakes trembling for the first time in a long time. 

Deliberately, carefully, he again locks away Caleb Dume. He is just Kanan Jarrus, and Kanan Jarrus never fought in the Clone Wars. 

His shaking hands don't believe him.)

**Author's Note:**

> I can probably count on one hand the number of things I've actually finished in the past two or three years so even though this is short I'm unexpectedly very very happy with it because I actually finished and posted it :)
> 
> thank you for reading!!


End file.
